THE MIX (United Arab Emirates, 1991?)
Thomsun Original EN - 4243



Long summer holidays without posting anything, but here at last is another Kraftwerk cassette - and it's another The Mix bootleg! This one I think comes from the United Arab Emirates - I'm not sure, as it doesn't say anywhere on cassette or J-card where it was manufactured, but Thomsun Original is known to be a U.E.A. label. And again, I'm just assuming the cassette was not issued in connection with Kraftwerk's record label or representatives, I have no way of knowing for sure. It would surprise me if Kraftwerk had sanctioned the release though, with the "Thomsun Original" logo scrawled across the front cover and jumbled running order of tracks...

The J-card is just one-panel, one-sided print, and looks somewhat cheap and easy. The cassette itself has the appearance of one of those blank cassettes you'd buy to DIY... The cassette shell has both the Thomsun logo and Maxell's UR-60 prefix, which they used on their cheapest standard cassettes. The label looks like it was printed on a DYMO handheld printer thingy.

Another fun fact: The cassette has a different track order than what is standard, in that Music Non Stop is moved to the end of side 1, and Metal on Metal is removed entirely. This gives you two 30-minute programs, instead of the usual 65 minutes ending with Music Non Stop. 

So all in all, this is not the classiest edition of Kraftwerk's The Mix. On the plus side, though, I suppose this edition indicates that even in the United Arab Emirates, you could get the music of Kraftwerk, should you require it.

(edit: I had to change this entry, as I wrote "Saudi Arabian" in the first version! How silly!)






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